Here’s a clip… well, that’s a well -known phrase in the film and Hollywood -style scene. You can take a piece from a movie or TV show and talk about it in relation to the rest of the show, the rest of the media industry, and society as a whole. You can dissect the scene or scenes picked out to analyze and talk it up regarding behavior, scenery, dress of the participants/ costumes, the setting, anything that one can use to categorize what people say and do in the world of entertainment.

The same applies to the world of professional sports.

In this case we talk about a few seconds’ clip of a conversation from NBA team owner Donald Sterling, wherein he makes an extreme racist comment regarding bringing “black” players to parties. Considering such players make up most of the National Basketball Association, Mr. Sterling really put his foot… well, feet, in it when he said that. Now his wife wants to retain her ownership of the Clippers, but she had just as much a part in supporting such behavior as Mr. Sterling, so both need to be removed from any further involvement with the NBA.

Meanwhile, what can the fans or supporters of the NBA do? We can talk with our pocketbooks for one thing! We do not have to support the spoiled brat owners and overpaid players and CEOs of the NBA. There are better things most of us can do with our money. And there are better examples we can set for our families. No one in Los Angeles has to support the Clippers; there are other things you can do with your time and money if you are so inclined. You can leave off going to the games all together for one thing. Just stop, cease and desist, terminate your financial support for the NBA.

Spend time with your spouse, your kids, your extended family. Go on a great vacation and have fun away from the talk and chat and mental trash and karmic garbage of the cities and the mass media. Imagine the vacation you could extend with the equivalent of the price of a season ticket to some boring game! You can spend time at home with your family – just hunker down in the quiet privacy of the house, with a fun family time of pizza, a movie, soda, popcorn, fun foods and drinks and gathering on the couch to bond. Forget professional sports; become a professional at having a good time with family and friends. Use the money you would spend on tickets and buy some really great food and serve a fine dinner at home to your family, friends or colleagues. Dress the table with candles, your best plates and flatware and napkins and some flowers, put on some mood music and have a party.

Or if you have wanted to take up a hobby you can use that money to try something in the arts world. Try photography; let your creative talents shine instead of watching a few guys on a wooden floor run up and down trying to put a rubber ball into a network basket for a few minutes at a time, with their loud and cruddy mouths and their bad attitudes up and down constantly on your squawk box with the blaring pixelated screen. Spend the ticket money on a nice DSLR with a great set of lenses and take off on a weekend vacation to try it out. Try your hand at painting or drawing or landscaping.

Of course you can always set the world of the celebrity and the media aside, turn everything off and go outside to do something for your community. Participate in a cleanup day; plant a garden, clean up the trash, mow a neighbor’s lawn, repair a deck or driveway. Paint your house… paint an elderly neighbor’s house. Wash the car, walk the dog of a sick friend. Take a war veteran to the movies. Treat yourself to a movie if you are a vet and know that your efforts paved the way for others in that theater to enjoy that show. Be proud of your output, no matter what you do to contribute to helping your community. Know that you are doing something for others, not supporting a group of spoiled and hyped multi -millionaires on some sweaty basketball court.

You can do more with your time and money… you just have to find out what interests you and try it out.

Jesse Jackson, Jr. is a son, a father, a husband; he is more though than a child and a parent and a spouse, though. He is a congressman, an elected official trusted by the people of the Second Congressional District in Illinois to represent them in Washington. He is a public servant, a chosen representative, a person the people who took the time to cast their votes hope in to do things for their community.

To some among us it falls to our lives to become elected officials to represent a group of people, the constituents who place their trust in someone in order that the group have representation in the halls of power, be they in Washington or in a local town hall. Now officials are certainly not superhuman; they are the same people before or after an election as they were when they chose to run for that office.

It also befalls that those people, being human, are susceptible to what happens to many people. They can get sick as we can, get married and have marital problems as anyone can, have to travel, to do heavy and hard business for their constituents, and be in trouble with the law. It just happens that a lot of this has happened to the Jackson family all at once, and unless you have a heart of stone that is so cold it may as well be in Antarctica, you will have pity and mercy on anyone on whom such a lot heaves its weight.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. is no doubt doing all he can to speak to the issues affecting his son, but he is after all a father first. He has the same concerns that any good parent would have when a child is ill and feeling out of sorts and having troubles of the magnitude the congressman is going through. I can only imagine what Mr. Jackson’s children are going through; surely they know things are not quite right at home.

Let all who are able offer prayers and petitions for Congressman and Alderman Jackson and their family as they deal with difficulties and struggle to come to terms with the stories in the news, the invasions of their privacy, people watching their home all the time waiting for movement so they can get a photo or a story. Let us hope they are able to somehow hold their family together with the help of loving relatives, friends, and their church or worship community.